The Boys' Book of Famous Rulers

by Lydia Hoyt Farmer

The disease progressed rapidly, and the dying hour drew near. It was the month of May, 1821. A violent storm raged with wild fury on that rocky prison-isle, as the spirit of the great Napoleon was freeing itself from its earthly fetters. His few faithful friends who shared his exile, stood weeping around his couch. In the solemn silence of that sacred hour his loved voice was once more faintly heard: “France! Army! Head of the Army! Josephine!” and the heart of Napoleon I. ceased to beat. “Isle of Elba! Napoleon!” had been the last words of the loving and forgiving Josephine. “France! the Army! Josephine!” were the last images which lingered in the heart, and the last words which trembled on the lips of the dying emperor.

“When the prejudice, and falsehood, and hatred of his enemies shall disappear, and the world can gaze impartially on this plebeian soldier, rising to the throne of an empire, measuring his single intellect with the proudest kings of Europe, and coming off victorious from the encounter, rising above the prejudices and follies of his age, ‘making kings of plebeians, and plebeians of kings,’ grasping, as by intuition, all military and political science, expending with equal facility his vast energies on war or peace, turning with the same profound thought from fierce battles to commerce, and trade, and finances; when the world can calmly thus contemplate him, his amazing genius will receive that homage which envy and ignorance and hatred now withhold.

“And when the intelligent philanthropist shall understand the political and civil history of Europe, and see how Napoleon broke up its systems of oppression and feudalism, proclaiming human rights in the ears of the world, till the continent shook with the rising murmurs of oppressed man; study well the changes he introduced, without which human progress must have ceased; see the great public works he established, the institutions he founded, the laws he proclaimed, and the civil liberty he restored; and then, remembering that the bloody wars that offset all these were waged by him in self-defence, and were equal rights struggling against exclusive despotism, he will regret that he has adopted the slanders of his foemen and the falsehoods of monarchists.”

THE ROCK AT ST. HELENA.

Alexander’s conquests were only for selfish glory; he cared not for his people, and little for his soldiers. Cæsar’s triumphs were for his own personal honor and power. The wars of Frederick the Great were nearly all unjust and aggressive, and he openly asserted his selfish ambition. But Napoleon, equalling them all in the brilliancy of his conquests, stands so far above them, as the idol of his people and his soldiers, as a man of incorruptible character, in the midst of temptations as great as any which have beset mortal men, as an intellectual genius, with a mind so phenomenal as to make him almost a miracle in far-seeing intuitions and marvellous accomplishment,—that he must be acknowledged, not only as the most famous of all the rulers of the world, but as the greatest uninspired man that ever lived. The history of most men terminates with the grave. But Napoleon’s story ended not with his lonely death upon the dreary Isle of St. Helena. Each year his memory was growing brighter. Each year the French people realized more and more the irreparable loss they had sustained. The heart-melting story of his hardships at St. Helena was told over and over again in his beloved France, till at last the nation rose as one man to do his memory honor. Just twenty-five years from the time when Napoleon was landed a captive upon the Island of St. Helena, his sacred remains were brought from their humble resting-place upon that rocky isle, and placed in the magnificent mausoleum prepared for them in the Church of the Invalides. On the anniversary of the great victory of Austerlitz, the two funeral frigates entered the harbor of Cherbourg. Three ships of war, the Austerlitz, the Friedland, and the Tilsit, immediately encircled the ship which bore the sacred remains. All the forts, batteries, and warships fired a salute. All France flocked to the cities and villages through which the funeral cortège was to pass.

At four o’clock, on the afternoon of the 14th of December, 1840, the flotilla arrived at Courbevoie, a small village four miles from Paris. Here the remains were to be transferred from the steamer to the shore. As the funeral barge sailed up the Seine, a colossal statue of Josephine, which had been erected on the shore, offered an appropriate and fitting welcome. Her fair form and face seemed to greet the return of her idolized husband. Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Cæsars, was then living ingloriously at Parma. No one thought of her. But at last Josephine and Napoleon were united together in sacred memories on earth, as their spirits had already been reunited in heaven.

“A Grecian temple one hundred feet high was constructed at the termination of the wharf, under which the body was to lie in state until transferred to the funeral car. Here Sergeant Hubert, who for nineteen years had kept watch at the solitary grave of Napoleon at St. Helena, landed. All the generals gathered around him, and he was welcomed by the people with deep emotion. The imperial funeral car was composed of five distinct parts, the basement, the pedestal, the Caryatides, the shield, and the cenotaph. The basement rested on four massive gilt wheels. It was profusely adorned with rich ornaments which were covered with frosted gold. Upon this basement stood groups of cherubs, seven feet high, supporting a pedestal eighteen feet long, covered with burnished gold. This pedestal was hung with purple velvet embroidered with gold. Upon it stood fourteen Caryatides, antique figures larger than life, and entirely covered with gold, supporting with their heads and hands an immense shield of solid gold. This shield was of oval form, and eighteen feet in length, and was richly decorated. Upon the top of this shield, nearly fifty feet from the ground, was placed the cenotaph, an exact copy of Napoleon’s coffin. It was slightly veiled with purple crape embroidered with golden bees. On the cenotaph, upon a velvet cushion, were placed the sceptre, the sword of justice, the imperial crown, in gold and embellished with precious stones.

“The Church of the Invalides had been magnificently adorned for the solemn ceremony. Thirty-six thousand spectators were seated upon immense platforms on the esplanade of the Invalides. Six thousand spectators thronged the seats of the spacious portico. In the interior of the church were assembled the clergy, the members of the Chambers of Deputies and of Peers, and all the members of the royal family and other distinguished personages from France and Europe.

“As the coffin, preceded by the Prince de Joinville, was borne along the nave upon the shoulders of thirty-two of Napoleon’s Old Guard, all rose and bowed in homage to the mighty dead.” Louis Philippe, surrounded by the great officers of state, then stepped forward to receive the remains.